


Visitation

by olivemartini



Series: the heavy hearts we hold together [19]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-22
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-12-05 13:16:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11578836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivemartini/pseuds/olivemartini
Summary: She has something to tell him.The words crawl up in her throat, crowd her mouth, lie on the tip of her tongue, but she doesn't tell him the first time she visits, or the second, or the third.I'm pregnant, she thinks, everytime he sits across from her.  I'm pregnant with your baby.





	Visitation

The words are crawling up her throat, resting on the tip of her tongue, choking her in their effort to get out.  The confession is practically bursting out of her, and yet she can't do it, not when Spencer is on the other side of this glass divider and looking like all her worst nightmares come true.  

_I'm pregnant._

She could say it.  She really could, just let it fall between them.  At least then he'd have something new to think about while he was in here, but that's a whole new kind of torture, to have him on the inside and her on the outside with his child growing inside of her, something they won't be able to talk about until the next time they visit.  And she's not even sure how she feels about it, so Beatrice isn't really certain she wants to bring in the complicated mix of what Reid might be feeling until she was sure that she could handle it.

"Are you alright?" She asks, wondering if there had ever been a stupider question.

"Yeah."  He seems to see the worry in her eyes, the questions she won't ask him, the ones she'll never let herself ask him.  "I'm safe.  No one's hurt me.  I've made a few friends."

He's made friends.  Like this is his first day of high school all over again.  "Good."  She nods, swallows the words she really doesn't want to say out loud yet anyways. She never does end up telling him, that visit.

 

 

Or the next one, where they sit and talk about legal strategies and Mr. Scratch and the team, about his mother and the nurse and the vacations they're going to take together when they get out.  (Paris, Rome, Disney, an entire month in the Bahamas because he deserves it.)

Or the one where he shows up with bruises all over his face, and his friend turned up dead, and a look of defeat in his eyes that hadn't been there before.

Or the one where she just sort of sits and stares at him through the glass but he won't stare back, so she makes meaningless conversation to draw him in but he never takes the bite.

"They'll get you out, okay?"  Visiting hours were drawing to a close, and she was desperate to put a little bit of hope back into his eyes.  "Just hang on."

"I'm running out of time."  He says, and there are shadows under his eyes and his hands are shaking.  He doesn't look good.  Spencer had seen death a lot, of friends and strangers and people he loved, but she thinks that this might be the one that might finally ruin him.  And this time, she and the team aren't there to help him hold it together.  "Did you bring me anything?"

Beatrice brightens, because she had, pulling out the picture that Henry had drawn for him. He gets a new one with each visit.  "He and your mother drew it.  JJ brought him over on her last visit."  He looks happy, the way that he always does when Henry is mentioned, and she can't justify keeping the truth from him any longer.  "Spencer, I-,"

But she didn't tell him then, either, because visiting hours ended and he has to leave without even a chance for her to say good bye.

 

 

 

The next time she shows up, she's not even allowed to go back and see him.

"What do you mean I'm off the list?"  She feels a bit like crying, something she hadn't done since that first night when she had to go back and lie to Reid's mother, and then went to sleep on the couch instead of back to her apartment. "I have to be on the list."

The man looked at her, a little bored and a little annoyed, but definitely not willing to let her through.  "I'm sorry, mam.  You're not on there."

"I was just there last week!  Beatrice Palmer."  She sounded like he crazy women, the one who come to see men that don't really want to see them, but Spencer loves her, he wants to see her.  "Maybe you missed it?"

"No."  The word makes her crumble, and maybe he sees it, because he's a little softer.  "Maybe it's a mistake.  Give his lawyer a call and see if she can't sort it out."

 

 

It wasn't a mistake.  

She had to learn it from JJ and Garcia, who had now formed the official "keep Beatrice from going crazy" team.  They weren't very good at it, seeing as they just keep giving her empty reassurances and cups of tea she won't drink.  "It's been hard on him."  JJ said, like that excused things.  "He's trying to deal with it the only way he knows how.  Maybe this is easier."

"It's been hard for me, too!"  She wasn't sure why she was saying this now, other than the fact that she drove to prison and then she drove here only to learn that no, there wasn't a mistake, Spencer just didn't want to see her.  She wasn't taking it well.  "And he can't just shut me out, because I'm here whether he likes it or not, and I'm going home to take care of his mother, and, and,"  She bursts out in a sob, vaguely paying attention to JJ's hand on her back and Garcia's shushing noises.  "I'm pregnant."

The room quiets down immediately, both women turning to her with brand new shock on their faces.  Beatrice is surprised that anything could shock them.  When Garcia talks, its loud enough that both Rossi and Emily turn to them.  "Pregnant?  You mean you and Reid are?"  She can't finish the sentence, and Beatrice can't answer her, just shakes her head and gives a little whimper.  "Oh.  Oh, no."

"yes."  She laughs and drinks the stupid tea.  "Oh, yes.  And now I can't even tell him.  And you can't either, okay?"

There's a silence where all of them pretend to have not acknowledged what they just heard, until Emily comes to her.  There's something soothing about Emily, like she's got everything under control.  "Is there anything we can do?"

"Just get him out of there,"  Beatrice mutters miserably, one hand on her stomach, imagining the day when she would feel the baby kick, where there would be no hiding this.  She thinks of those nights of praying and whispered I love you's, and thinks that now is the time to cash them in.  "Please."

 

 

 


End file.
